Your rebranding checklist – how to plan for brand identity updates

So you’ve decided that it’s time for a rebrand. Congratulations! Refreshing your brand is a highly effective way to connect with new audiences, inspire existing ones, or to set yourself apart from the competition in a rapidly changing marketplace.

The best way to tackle the transition is simple: plan ahead and strategize smartly. This simple checklist will help make sure that the process is as smooth, efficient and pain-free as possible. You’ll find our rebranding checklist below:

1. Inform and Identify

Inform relevant stakeholders

Don’t let clients, business relationships or staff get caught off-guard by a sudden rebrand. As you consider and plan your brand makeover, it’s important to keep important stakeholders in the loop. Make staff and partners aware that a change is coming before you actually undergo the transition, which will make their jobs easier. It’s also a great way to get critical feedback from your stakeholders and get them involved in the process, which in turn will build those relationships and promote loyalty.

It also helps to get audiences excited by hinting that something big will happen. Keep laying that groundwork all the way up until your brand launch via social media and newsletters – the last thing you want is for an existing customer to visit your new site and think they’ve ended up in the wrong place.

Identify your new business name or identity

Decide on and develop your brand architecture. The key factors to think about when engaging designers and outside consultants include:

How would my new brand look fit in with new digital and mobile platforms and across my internal content?

In developing an identity, be careful not to chase naming or visual trends that might soon become obsolete. At the same time, don’t be afraid to take a risk – if you want to get customers and stakeholders excited about your new business direction and stand out from the pack, you will need to find a creative way to describe it to them.

Note: If you’re changing your business name and not just your logo, make sure to clarify that the URL, social media handles and trademarks are available.

2. External Implementation

Update your digital presence:

You’ve done the work, now it’s time to roll it out and transition your website, social media and third-party sites with your new logo, imagery, content text and contact information. Search your brand and monitor it with Google Alerts so that you become aware when it is mentioned and can make changes if anything under the old branding rears its head.

A rebrand isn’t simply an easy switch, where you wake up one day under a new logo and business carries on as usual. Once everything is implemented, it’s important to strategize and execute an effective way to introduce it to the world at large. A good way to do this is to add a blog post or news item explaining the change. Another is to intermittently share social media posts reminding customers of your new brand over the first 3-6 months.

When selling the story of your new brand, it’s critical to communicate how it will improve the experience of your existing customers:

“When developing the strategy, it’s crucial to remember people don’t care about names or logos – they care about how the rebrand is going to positively change their experience with your company,” advises Shannon Fitzgerald, brand strategist.

“At the same time, most people fight change. Make sure you’re not leaving behind the things people love about your company. You must articulate why this is better – explain they’ll still get the parts they already love plus new, exciting benefits.”

3. Internal implementation

Here is where underprepared rebrands can go disastrously wrong: managers forget that the inside of a business matters as much as the outside. Leaving traces of your old logo behind on internal material looks unprofessional and disorganized – the opposite of the sleek shift you were going for.

That means you need to make the effort to update all business systems and marketing materials, such as:

Name badges, business cards, email signatures and stationery, from letterheads to folders and cover sheets

Signage

Internal documents such as forms, contracts and applications

Word and PowerPoint templates

Presentation decks

Does trawling through endless internal documents sound so time-consuming that it’s almost thrown you off the idea of a rebrand? Fortunately, Templafy’s software makes it easy by automating the process and doing the job for you.

Templafy seamlessly rolls out brand identity updates across templates, documents and related brand assets, ensuring new designs are used correctly by staff immediately after the launch. It maintains visual compliance across all of your internal content, from presentation decks to contracts, and automatically updates any changes.’

Our tool ensures that all users only have access to current and compliant content, and alerts users when they open files with old branding. It’s an easy and fast way to ensure that your new brand is fully implemented across your entire company, helping you dodge embarrassing mistakes.

Keen to know more or go through the rebranding checklist with one of your consultants? Schedule a free 20 minutes meeting to learn how Templafy automates brand compliance.

Templafy brings custom company templates, brand assets and best practice content together directly inside any office application, streamlining how users create on-brand and compliant documents, presentations and emails. With Templafy, global businesses from all industries safeguard their brand integrity and increase productivity through a centrally governed, secure and easy to use platform.